Shen Yuchu wiped her face and carried her soiled clothes back home.
Upon arriving, she saw a jeep parked in front of the house—it looked exactly like the one that had just splattered dirt all over her face. Their village was close to the town streets and not particularly remote, yet vehicles like that were rare indeed, and it had certainly left her covered in dust.
Before she could even approach, Auntie Dong hurried over. "Your husband is back."
Shen Yuchu: "..." Give her a moment to process this.
She hadn't even stepped through the door when she heard Shen Chunfen, who was tugging at a man in military uniform currently bent over at the waist, screeching: "What kind of wife did you marry? Get rid of her! Get a divorce immediately! I don't want to see her face for another second."
"She even took the sweet potatoes and peanuts your sister brought from home and gave them away to other people!"
"She even hit me! Who does this Shen Yuchu think she is? You need to divorce her right now. Our Lin family cannot afford a woman like her."
"Make her crawl as far away as she can... Oh, the pain..."
"..."
Shen Yuchu’s face darkened as she clenched the money she had left in her hand. She had originally intended to put it back after she’d finished washing up, but now, she decided she wouldn't give her a single cent. This wretched old woman was truly wicked.
Shen Yuchu strode inside, her expression grim. Before Lin Xuan could even open his mouth, she kicked a stool standing next to him, sending it crashing to the floor. The force of the impact made Shen Chunfen jump and shiver.
Shen Yuchu sat down on a chair, grabbed a handful of peanuts, and began eating them without a care in the world.
Shen Chunfen grabbed her son’s arm. "Look, look at this! This is your wife! Just look at how she’s behaving."
Lin Xuan turned to face Shen Yuchu. It was the same face he remembered, yet there was something in her eyes that felt entirely foreign to him.
Shen Yuchu tossed the peanut shells directly at Shen Chunfen’s feet. She was wearing thick cotton shoes, and she deliberately stomped on the shells, listening to the crunching sound they made.
Despite her repulsive appearance—the drooping eyelids, the downturned mouth, and lips that mirrored her sharp, petty nature—Shen Chunfen’s son looked nothing like her. He took after his father: handsome, with double eyelids, standing at nearly six feet tall, with a neat short haircut, large eyes, and a high bridge of the nose. He didn't even resemble Lin Hui, who looked exactly like Shen Chunfen. It seemed that in the Lin family, the daughters took after the mother and the sons after the father.
"Pfft!"
"Ugh!" Shen Yuchu bit into a rotten peanut and spat it directly onto the floor. After spitting, she wiped her nose with her hand and then grabbed some rough paper to wipe it clean.
Shen Chunfen immediately bristled. "Oh, for heaven’s sake! That’s paper I bought for you to wipe your nose with, and there’s barely any left! How dare you waste it like that!" She immediately turned to complain to her son: "Look at your wife! She has no idea how to run a household. I don’t even have the heart to use this paper myself, and here she is, wasting it on her nose. She never saves anything, and all she does is eat. And the moment you ask her to do any work, she hides in the outhouse for half an hour at a time. A lazy person always has a thousand excuses."
Shen Yuchu shot a glance at her mother-in-law and rolled her eyes. When had she ever used that paper? And what did she mean by "every day"? The original host had been so timid she wouldn't even dare to fart in this house. Everything had always gone exactly the way Shen Chunfen wanted. She had only just arrived in this body and hadn't done a single thing yet, and here was the old woman already making accusations.
Shen Yuchu stared at her "cheap" mother-in-law, thinking: *Go ahead, complain all you want. I don’t want to spend my life with your son anyway. The more you say, the better!*
Seeing her son remain silent, Shen Chunfen assumed he was in agreement. She clutched Lin Xuan’s hand and said, "Xiao Xuan, did you have urgent business coming home? If you had arrived a bit earlier, you could have seen your sister. She even brought your nephew along..."
Shen Yuchu began picking her nose. She rolled the result into a small ball between her thumb and forefinger and flicked it right at Shen Chunfen’s mouth.
"Ah! What is that? Ugh!" Shen Chunfen shrieked.
Shen Yuchu extended a small, booted foot and tapped it against the ground. "Why look at her? Why not look at how your sister hauled sweet potatoes from home in a snake-skin bag? Or how she lugged away the peanuts in a fertilizer sack?"
Emboldened by her son's presence, Shen Chunfen straightened her back and pointed a finger at Shen Yuchu: "Don't you try to twist things! Your sister married the son of the cannery director; they are city folk, they don't care about these little things in our house. Look at how stingy you are! So what if she took a few sweet potatoes and peanuts? Will you starve to death because of it?"
Shen Yuchu looked at Lin Xuan: "Are you..." (the original host's husband).
"What did you come back for? If you want to help your mother and sister fight me, then fine—come on!" Shen Yuchu rolled up her sleeves, revealing her fair, slender arms—the result of her recent scrub. A gust of cold wind blew in, making her shiver.
Lin Xuan quickly reached out and pulled her sleeves back down, his voice softening. "Go inside and rest. I’ll handle things with Mom. We’ll talk later."
Shen Yuchu’s expression darkened. "Talk? What could you possibly have to say that you can’t say now? What, are you just trying to protect your mother and sister, and I’m just an outsider? Fine! Let’s go file for divorce right now! I’m done serving you people!"
*Clang!* Shen Yuchu kicked over the basin she had brought in from her bath.
The action left Lin Xuan stunned. This wasn't the Shen Yuchu he had known three years ago. What had happened to her? The Shen Yuchu of the past was gentle, kind, and soft-spoken. She never raised her voice; even when she spoke, it was so quiet it seemed to barely leave her throat. She had been as soft and graceful as her name suggested, embodying the beauty of a traditional woman.
But... why, after three years, had she changed so much? He hadn’t been home for even fifteen minutes, and already she had kicked over a stool, overturned a basin, and thrown peanut shells at his mother’s feet. And besides... it wasn't a holiday or anything special, so why was she dressed up in such gaudy clothes?
Lin Xuan blinked and looked toward Shen Chunfen. "Mom, when did she become like this?"